I lost a dear friend last Sunday. She was 37 and battled breast cancer for three years. She lived and died in Australia and I met her when I lived there in 2003. She was a few days away from being considered to be in remission, and two days away from her birthday, when her cancer aggressively resurfaced. This time it was a brain tumour and the cancer quickly spread into her spinal column. It would only be four more months until her celebration of life. She came to visit me in Vancouver in 2006 and we spent some time hanging out in Whistler. Appropriately, I was in Whistler this weekend. And I spent it thinking about Karen, about death, about grief, and about life.
Karen was an incredible human being. She was witty, kind, generous, and full of life. She was happy with where she was and with who she was. Perhaps more than anyone else I know, she found joy in most things. She didn’t get stressed, she never lashed out, she had totally average aspirations, and her priorities were her dog, her family and her friends. And she was hilarious. She was raised in a Catholic family and I can hear her joking about having died on Easter Sunday and the parallels with Jesus Christ. I’m sure her parents found comfort in that.
She blogged about her cancer journey because she couldn’t find information online about what it actually felt like to have cancer. She also used her blog to keep in touch when she couldn’t get out of bed. It’s painful to read her final posts before she got really sick. But it’s also an incredible gift to have the chance to read about what she was going through, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I’m grateful that I could stay in touch with her through social media. As she neared the end of her life, her sister used her Facebook page to keep her friends updated. It’s been over a week since she died, but I’m on her page every day reading all of the lovely words and photos her friends have shared.
I don’t know why it’s so easy to ignore the painful realities of life until they smack you right in the heart. But it is. We continue to eat crappy food, pursue unhealthy thoughts and behaviours, and misspend time and energy. People often describe changes they make as prompted by a wake-up call. Are we not awake every day? Why does it take the real threat of death to make us wake up to ourselves?
During my angsty undergrad days, I questioned the point of life. Not in an “I don’t want to live” way, but more in a Bittersweet Symphony way. At the time, my very smart brother told me that the point of life is to have as much fun as possible. I thought that was way simplistic and self-indulgent and stupid. Fifteen years on from that, I now understand what he meant. And I agree: the point of life is to live. And to live in gratitude. To be a good friend, ally, advocate, activist, community-builder, parent, colleague, and child, you start from a place of graciousness.
Karen taught me how to live life when she was alive and she taught me how to live in her death. I’m sad but I’m also grateful for the reminder that our time is finite and each day is to be lived. So I’m choosing to honour my beautiful friend Karen by having as much fun as possible. I know I’ll forget and get irritated by the usual annoyances, like bad manners, alarm clocks, and telecom bills. My simple plan is to keep a photo of Karen close at hand so I’ve always got her beautiful face to remind me to smile. I like to think of this as good grief.